The aim of this study is to contribute to knowledge about pre-school teachers´ qualitative different ways of handling a learning object in science when children 4-5 years old are visiting nature. Learning is here seen as a change in the learners’ possibility to experience the world in a certain way and it takes place everywhere. It can be both planned and unplanned.The framework used, variation theory, states for learning to occur, critical aspects of the learning object have to be simultaneously discerned and focused on. The learning object is seen as a capability and it can be defined by its critical features. When playing and interacting with others, a space of variation is constituted that decides what is possible to learn concerning a delimited learning object. When teachers make differences in the children’s´ earlier experiences visible it may contribute to, critical aspects that the learner has not been previously able to discern becomes visible. The data is collected by video observations (20 hours). A group of children and their teachers were videotaped during their stay in nature (a total of 9 days). The research builds on ordinary preschool activities and is not an experiment designed by the researcher. A qualitative analysis seeks to discern how teachers can maintain children’s interest of the phenomena and contribute to develop the children´s knowledge. All parents were informed and had to give their written permission for the children to take part in the research. Every time when starting the video recording the children were asked if it was OK to observe them and they were informed it was freely for them to stop the recording whenever they wanted. The teachers were informed they also had permission to stop the observation whenever they wanted. All participants were guaranteed preservation of anonymity. Three qualitatively different ways of dealing with a learning object is found. In the presentation possible reasons for the teachers´ different ways of handling the learning object will be discussed. Implication for practice is to show the teacher´s role in children’s learning of science. The curriculum points out science learning as an important question for pre-school teacher to handle, but teachers often lack a strategy for this mission.

The background of this article is that the educational sciences of today give priority to a wide concept of the text and researchers in Sweden proclaim a horizontal concept of the text for the same purpose of giving equal epistemological status to verbal and semiotic sign-action. Today’s ‘language turn’ and ‘visual turn’ do not only include the linguistic and the figurative picture but also the materials and its texture. The idea of this study is to inquire how small children use aesthetic materials for action and meaning and what teachers do and think about this. The meaning potential is the tension between the image’s character levels, the child’s lifeworld and the teachers’ subject-specific discourse with the child. The main purpose is to learn about how the zone of proximal communication between children and children’s pictures and teachers might become more stable. Therefore I find the meaning potential of interest to a pragmatic inquiry. The design is inspired from action research. The result features the children’s orientation to sign-mindedness from the ages of one to five as well as the teachers’ reflections on their own progress in meeting young children’s action regarding material to give them support in learning and development.

In this study a particular kind of figurative language, so-called anthropomorphic speech, is analysed in the context of science activities in a preschool setting. Anthropomorphism means speaking about something non-human in human terms. Can any systematic pattern be seen with regard to when such speech is used? Do children and/or teachers introduce this kind of talking and how is it responded to by the interlocutor(s)? Of 128 instances of anthropomorphism found, 24 were made by the children and 104 by the teachers. Children sometimes respond in line with the introduction of such speech but they also at times reject this way of speaking. Anthropomorphic speech is discussed as a strategy for the teachers in handling the dilemma of how to connect with children’s experiences and terms, on the one hand, and developing children’s understanding, on the other hand.

Qualitative changes in teachers’ ways of talking about teaching and science as content in preschool practice

Laila Gustavsson och Susanne Thulin, Kristianstad University

The aim of the research project presented here is to analyze and describe how pre-school teachers during an in-service training period develop theoretical knowledge about focusing the content when planning for teaching science in pre-school. This particular training period can be seen as needed due to a new school 16

law and a revised curriculum for Swedish pre-schools in 2011, where the concept teaching in pre-school is used for the first time and different content areas as mathematics and science is highlighted. The variation theory is here used as a framework for analysis as well as for the pre-school teachers planning for teaching in pre-school (Marton & Booth, 1997). The theory is developed from the phenomenographic approach and can be described in terms of learning object, critical aspects, discernment, simultaneity, variation and a shared space of learning (Marton, 2014). The results in a phenomenographic study is an outcome space of categories describing qualitatively different ways of experiencing the same phenomenon. 30 pre-school teachers from 10 different pre-schools in nine different municipalities participated in the project. The empirical material consist of a questionnaire with open ended questions as the preschool teachers answered in the beginning and in the end of the training period, and of group reports as were written from scientific projects. The study has followed the ethical guidelines of the Swedish Research Council (2002). The results can be discussed as a number of critical aspects in relation to teachers' learning as: ways of understand the concept of variation, to discern the object of learning and a shared space of learning. One important factor to point out concerning the design of in-service training is the importance of keeping together theories of children’s learning and the learning object (science).

Qualitative changes in teachers’ ways of talking about teaching and science as content in preschool practicepresentationsformat: Muntlig presentationabstract: The aim of the research project presented here is to analyze and describe how pre-school teachers during an in-service training period develop theoretical knowledge about focusing the content when planning for teaching science in pre-school. This particular training period can be seen as needed due to a new school law and a revised curriculum for Swedish pre-schools in 2011, where the concept teaching in pre-school is used for the first time and different content areas as mathematics and science is highlighted. The variation theory is here used as a framework for analysis as well as for the pre-school teachers planning for teaching in pre-school (Marton & Booth, 1997). The theory is developed from the phenomenographic approach and can be described in terms of learning object, critical aspects, discernment, simultaneity, variation and a shared space of learning (Marton, 2014). The results in a phenomenographic study is an outcome space of categories describing qualitatively different ways of experiencing the same phenomenon. 30 pre-school teachers from 10 different pre-schools in nine different municipalities participated in the project. The empirical material consist of a questionnaire with open ended questions as the preschool teachers answered in the beginning and in the end of the training period, and of group reports as were written from scientific projects. The study has followed the ethical guidelines of the Swedish Research Council (2002). The results can be discussed as a number of critical aspects in relation to teachers' learning as: ways of understand the concept of variation, to discern the object of learning and a shared space of learning. One important factor to point out concerning the design of in-service training is the importance of keeping together theories of children’s learning and the learning object (science).Key-word: Preschool teacher, In-service training, Teaching, Science, Variation theory, Phenomenography

In this presentation we want to elucidate children’s own experiences and the other is an aesthetic dimension of learning. In modern education children’s experiences are considered to be a starting point for their learning and development. To take advantage of and make use of each child’s knowledge seems to be a pedagogical consequence in the learning processes. The concept of aesthetics has often got a one-sided interpretation as a methodical support for learning and development. The tendency is to view aesthetic expressions as a method related to children’s development and acquisition of knowledge. The purpose of this study is to find out how aesthetics can be seen as one dimension of children’s experienced world. The study took place in a pre-school setting with children 3-5 year of age. The data consist of video observations in situations where teachers and children work with science content or more specifically they investigated; “What is soil?” The data are analyzed qualitatively. Three categories of children’s experienced world can be discerned and seen as related to three different ways of acting. On a general level one conclusion is, that aesthetics is a natural part of children’s experienced world and that it is of importance for children equal right in their meaning making. Strong or weak aesthetics in a learning situation will be further discussed and problemized.